The Chink
by This Fic is on Fire
Summary: When Jack walks in on a few taunting pals invading his privacy, insults are thrown around, including one that sticks into him like a knife- the one chink in his thick armor. One-shot, kinda-sorta crack fic, not to be taken too seriously.


Jack sat on his lower bunk in his ominously empty room of the Lodging House. His mind went numb.

It happened incredibly fast, but it left an incredibly deep wound.

_Five of the boys snooping around his bunk._

Jack glanced down. Specs left one of his shoes near the ladder. Naturally.

_Albert's grubby fingers curled around a wad of his landscape sketches from under his bed._

Jack now wrung the drawings of Santa Fe tightly in his fists.

_Race's harsh, nasal laugh at Jack's sheet-white face._

He would've slugged him square on in the face if it weren't for the next words that came out of his mouth.

_"You goin' soft on us, Kelly?"_

"What're you, gay?"

Jack was used to the occasional playful insult from a fellow newsie. But he couldn't swallow that word as easily as he could "chump" or "nitwit."

_Gay._

They found the one chink in Jack's thick armor.

It was an adjective he despised, but knew well and was labeled in the past. The frustrations of his youth were reignited, like a poison flame, burning away the reputation he'd built up in the Lodging House.

He couldn't reply. His brain had flashed back to images from his childhood, when he had folks.

When he went to school.

He was eight years old when he learned the word. It was a mentally abandoned world. He couldn't remember the context. But it was always associated with picked fights with older kids.

The definition? As far as Jack was concerned, the definition was a softie. A weakling. A wimp. A dependent. A creep. An outcast.

"I ain't soft," he muttered, stifling a scream through his clenched teeth. "I ain't weak."

Yes. It felt good saying it aloud.

"I ain't a wimp."

He carefully unfurled the wrinkled, yellow paper and took another look at his intricate drawing. They had the right to call that queer just because he had a daydream?

Maybe they found out about his and Crutchie's roof talks. Maybe they think that they're _both_ dependent on each other in a way separate from friendship.

"I ain't dependent." He snarled. Who could possibly be around to hear?

_"Get out of here," he had shouted. "Get out! How is this any of you's business?"_

_The boys had all left in mock terror._

_"We'll just leave you wid' your boyfriend," Buttons had snickered under 'is breath._

_Jack didn't quite understand the crack, but it pushed him over the edge._

_"Get the hell outta here!" _

"I ain't gay!" The words shot straight out of his mouth from the bottom of his heart. He slammed the edges of the crinkled paper against the side of the bed to straighten them, then held them up against the light, studying every overlapping pen stroke of western valleys for the last time.

He began to tear down the center, but was interrupted by what Jack could've sworn was a yelp of "No!"

He looked around the room. He saw no one inhabit the two-bunk bed room but the occasional cockroach skittering along the wall. He briefly hoisted himself over each short latter to check the beds. All that laid in the bunk above him was a large pile of blankets – ditto for the ones parallel to him.

But it sounded just like Crutchie's bright, youthful voice. It was strained with panic.

Jack quickly shook it off. It could've just as easily been the squeak of the floorboards of the fourth floor above.

He took another glance at the papers and smoothed them over, regretting ever harming them. On the papers laid his last hope, a dream that he never shared with anyone in the world. It was fitting that he heard Crutchie's voice in his head – he was the only exception to the rule. He was special. He could be trusted. He was the only one who understood. Apparently, the only one who could accept his artistic side and still respect him. Jack didn't know how, but Santa Fe became just as much _his_ dream as it was Jack's. They almost had a telepathic link – whenever one couldn't sleep, they could always find the other one on the roof, and there they could talk freely about their fantasy together without being accused of… well, of homosexuality.

Did the boys really think, on top of this, that Crutchie and him had more than a friendship? True, their relationship definitely _was_ greater than the average brotherhood. But did it add with the drawings to total that one powerful word from Race's mouth; _Gay?_

But what was so bad about being gay anyhow?

He suddenly shook his head in disbelief over his desire to contemplate it.

_Well, you get your ass kicked the second you admit it,_ Jack thought to himself. He had built up a tough exterior that made the other boys follow his every word and look to him for everything. He was not about to even consider this.

"I ain't," he confirmed to himself. "Not for Crutchie. Not for nobody. The thought is sick. And that's final."

He gently laid his sketches right below his bed and slung his satchel over his shoulder. Fifteen or so papes still remained in the bottom, and the sun was beginning to set. He silently cursed himself for getting a hundred and twenty through a bet with Finch.

Just as he closed the door, the boy who lied in silence the entire time threw the blankets he had hid under over the side of the high bunk and took a deep breath. He thought he was going to suffocate. He struggled to sit up, given his body's imbalance. Then he scanned the floor below to see the drawings sticking out from under Jack's bed. Good. He kept them.

The very last thing he wanted to do was invade Jack's privacy. He doesn't keep much from him. But he was taking a break from his day of peddling papers, sitting on his bed when the other guys came in to cool off and discovered the stash. He desperately tried to defend his friend, but he was unable to climb down because they wouldn't give him room. His defiant shouts only put a sharper point on the phrase that Jack got hung up on.

He had covered his head with the pillow, and when Jack stormed in, he didn't want to startle him more.

Did he really mean everything he said?

The boy rested a hand on the back of his lightly freckled neck. Jack's threat to himself of ripping the pictures apart did frighten him. Though everyone dubbed _him_ as the most optimistic of the entire newsie gang, without Jack's occasional reminders of a possibility to start a new life, he probably would have sank to depression long ago.

Yes, he did care deeply about Jack, and Jack cared deeply about him.

It was only now that he realized there were two different kinds of deep caring.

He mentally scolded himself for ever thinking differently. This was the reckless Jack Kelly we were talking about. Not a boy of sentiment.

With heavy heart, the boy carefully climbed down the ladder, slid atop his crutch that leaned on the wire frame, and limped off to meet back up with his friends.


End file.
